Eurekalert August 12, 2019 Dislocation activity is critical to ductility and the mechanical strength of metals. In general, suppressing dislocation activity leads to brittleness of polycrystalline materials. An international team of researchers (USA – University of Wisconsin, George Mason University, UT Arlington, China) found that bending samarium cobalt caused narrow bands to form inside the crystal lattice, where molecules assumed a freeform “amorphous” configuration instead of the regular, grid-like structure in the rest of the metal. Those amorphous bands allowed the metal to bend. Next, the researchers plan to search for other materials that might also bend in this peculiar […]
Russian hackers are infiltrating companies via the office printer
MIT Technology Review August 5, 2019 The Russian hackers, who go by names like Strontium, Fancy Bear, and APT28, are linked to the military intelligence agency GRU. The new campaign from GRU compromised popular internet of things devices including a VOIP phone, a connected office printer, and a video decoder in order to gain access to corporate networks. Although things like smartphones and desktop computers are often top of mind when it comes to security, it’s often the printer, camera, or decoder that leaves a door open for a hacker to exploit. The hackers moved from one device to another, […]
Thinnest optical waveguide channels light within just three layers of atoms
Science Daily August 12, 2019 A team of researchers in the US (UC San Diego, City University of New York, Johns Hopkins University) present an experimental demonstration of light guiding in an atomically thick tungsten disulfide membrane patterned as a photonic crystal structure. In this scheme, two-dimensional tungsten disulfide excitonic photoluminescence couples into quasi-guided photonic crystal modes known as resonant-type Wood’s anomalies. These modes propagate via total internal reflection with only a small portion of the light diffracted to the far field. Such light guiding at the ultimate limit provides more possibilities to miniaturize optoelectronic devices and to test fundamental […]
US Navy and Missile Defense Agency Megawatt Lasers by 2023-2024
Next Big Future August 8, 2019 In 2018, the US Navy and Missile Defense Agency had targeted demonstrating megawatt lasers by 2023-2024. The US Army recently had an announcement of a contract for 250-300 kilowatt lasers on a large truck by 2024. This means that four container-sized laser power systems could be combined on a Navy ship or at a Missile Defense base for a megawatt laser. A large US Army truck is the same size as a shipping container. A mobile 250-kilowatt laser has all the power, fuel and electronics for module that could be used for a megawatt […]
Top 10 Science and Technology Inventions for the Week of August 09, 2019
01. Scientists develop filter to suppress radio interference 02. Why did my classifier just mistake a turtle for a rifle? 03. Quantum light sources pave the way for optical circuits 04. Technique uses magnets, light to control and reconfigure soft robots 05. In the future, this electricity-free tech could help cool buildings in metropolitan areas 06. Physicists make graphene discovery that could help develop superconductors 07. Lessons of conventional imaging let scientists see around corners 08. Light Seems to Pull Electrons Backward 09. Machine learning helps predict if storms will cause power outages 10. A wearable device so thin and […]
Bangladesh, China and India Could Have Conflicts Over the Brahmaputra River
Next Big Future August 2, 2019 The Brahmaputra River starts in China and runs through India and Bangladesh. There are serious concerns for regional stability in conflicts over the water of the Brahmaputra River. China and India are actively constructing dams and considering water diversion plans to meet domestic needs, especially for irrigation. India has plans to build hundreds of dams in the Northeast region. Bangladesh faces human security pressures that will be magnified by upstream river practices. The Brahmaputra basin has been comparatively underexamined, despite the complex geopolitics involved and potential threats to regional stability. The Brahmaputra basin covers […]
China has started a grand experiment in AI education. It could reshape how the world learns.
MIT Technology Review August 2, 2019 According to one estimate, China led the way investing over $1 billion globally last year in AI education. Tech giants, startups, and education incumbents have all jumped in. Tens of millions of students now use some form of AI to learn. Three things have fueled China’s AI education boom. The first is tax breaks and other incentives for AI ventures, academic competition in China is fierce and Chinese entrepreneurs have masses of data at their disposal to train and refine their algorithms. Squirrel, one of the largest AI education companies in China, also opened […]
Evolving Computers from Tools to Partners in Cyber-Physical System Design
DARPA August 2, 2019 Designing cyber-physical systems (CPS), which are critical for the DOD systems and programs, require an army of skilled engineers, domain-specific tools requiring long design cycles. To address these issues DARPA created the Symbiotic Design for Cyber Physical Systems (Symbiotic Design) a part of DARPA’s AI Next campaign – a multi-year, $2 billion investment into new and existing programs focused on the development and application of “Third Wave” AI technologies. DARPA views the Third Wave of AI as the development of systems that are capable of acquiring new knowledge through generative contextual and explanatory models…read more. Solicitation
In the future, this electricity-free tech could help cool buildings in metropolitan areas
EurekAlert August 5, 2019 An international team of researchers (University of Buffalo, University of Wisconsin, Saudi Arabia, China) fabricated an inexpensive planar polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS)/metal thermal emitter thin film structure using a fast solution coating process that is scalable for large-area manufacturing. The spectral-selective structure was designed and implemented to suppress the solar input and control the divergence of the thermal emission beam enhancing the directionality of the thermal emissions, so the emitter’s cooling performance was less dependent on the surrounding environment. In tests under different environmental conditions, temperature reductions of 9.5 °C and 11.0 °C in the laboratory and outside environment, respectively, […]
Lessons of conventional imaging let scientists see around corners
Science Daily August 5, 2019 An international team of researchers (USA – University of Wisconsin, Spain) shows that the problem of non-line-of-sight imaging can also be formulated as one of diffractive wave propagation, by introducing a virtual wave field that they call the phasor field. Their method yields a new class of imaging algorithms that mimic the capabilities of line-of-sight cameras. They demonstrated non-line-of-sight imaging of complex scenes with strong multiple scattering and ambient light, arbitrary materials, large depth range and occlusions. Their method handles these challenging cases without explicitly inverting a light-transport model. Once perfected, it could be used […]